Fuse / Mar 2003

Interview on Fuse with Lacuna Coil, Uranium show, on 6/3/03 at New England metalfest at Worcester, MA.

Julia [outside of the bus]:
We’ve been told that they are still sleeping on the bus…

Julia:
Going on the bus… So you guys were sleeping up until now? Who sleeps until 2 in the afternoon, what the fuck?!

Andrea:
We always sleep till 5, we are artists, we need it.

Julia:
Fucking bastards!

[they settle down, Cristina sits between the guitar players (Cristiano and Marco), Andrea sits on the opposite side between CriZ (thedrummer) and Marco (the base player)]

Julia:
What exactly is Lacuna Coil?

Cristina:
It’s a band.

Julia:
What does it mean, really?

Cristina:
It’s a band that plays mixture between gothic, rock and metal with a modern touch because we are really trying to be open minded and trying to sound like every kind of music that we listen to just work on it and try to make something original.

Julia:
You guys are from Italy, what is the scene there, like rock/metal scene?

Cristina:
I don’t know if we really can talk about metal scene because it’s still in the underground, metal is not the main music, it’s not supported by big media like regular TV, we just have one metal radio.

Andrea:
In the beginning, there were very few bands coming from Europe especially, and now there’re much more bands professional even if it’s still tough to go out of the little scene, but it’s really growing, it’s much better.

Julia:
Your new record just came out called… eh… Comalees?

All together:
Comalies!

Julia:
There you go… [laughs] Is it, like, coma, or in a coma, or…

Cristina:
We just wanted to play with words, and instead of Comalize, like, comalized by music…

Julia:
I thought it was something like, Italian…

Andrea:
We played a little bit with the words… The meaning is Comalize, but we like to play and put it in the wrong way because we like to give it a different meaning, like something more interesting and more special

Julia:
A lot of your lyrics and songs have to do a lot with struggle between lovers and that type of theme. What influences your lyrics and why do so many songs deal with that?

Cristina:
Basically, I write the lyrics together with Andrea, but I can say that we are just inspired by every day’s life. But we can be inspired by everything, by movies, soundtracks, by people telling us stories, basically by our reflections of our life.

Julia:
How did you guys all get together and started the band?

Andrea:
Just us for fun, me and … [points to Marco] just … friends, got together, then we started just for fun to play some cover songs … Then we get more serious and serious, and then we met Cristina and the other guys in the band, then we did the demo tape and sent it to the record labels, it really comes very natural.

Julia[to Cristina]:
Is there any sexual attention within the band, because you are the only chick?

Cristina:[doesn’t know how to react] Noooo…. [laughs]

Julia:
Don’t lie! [laughs]

Julia:
You are one of the very few females in this very male dominated genre. What would be you advise to females trying to get into that heavy music genre?

Cristina:
A lot of respect for themselves, because you know, a girl can be sexy with her movements, with her eyes, with her mouth, without showing too much, without being vulgar. And of course they have to love this, they don’t have to do this just because it’s interesting to see a female in a metal band.

Julia:
Any other comments on what would your advise be to people trying to get into this genre. Because it’s so difficult to get into it and stay true to whatever sound that you really want to produce versus, you know …

Andrea:
The main thing is always is you have to believe in what you do, of course. Because sometimes everything looks nice and you play for a lot of people and sign autographs and sell CD’s… But behind it there’s a lot of jobs and a lot of sacrifice, especially in the beginning, where you don’t get any money… So you really need to believe in your music, because otherwise it’s not working.

Julia:
You guys only have, like, 20 mins to play… [they correct her] Half an hour? How do you pick the songs you want to play, it’s a really short time for a set.

Cristina:
We just pick out the most aggressive songs, not really because of the feel, but it’s more funny for us to play most strong songs we have on stage…

Andrea:
It’s easier, too to get in contact with the audience, because when you play more typical songs, they can get into it more easily if they don’t know our stuff

Julia:
Thank you very much, have a great show, I’m looking forward to see you very much. Sorry for waking you up.